Why We Make Things and Why It Matters: The Education of a Craftsman

In this moving account, we follow Korn's search for meaning as an Ivy-educated child of the middle class who finds employ- ment as a novice carpenter on Nantucket, morphs into a self- employed designer/craftsman of fine furniture, takes a right turn into teaching woodworking and design at Colorado's Anderson Ranch Arts Center, and finally founds a school in Maine: The Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, an interna- tionally respected, non-profit institution teaching design, furniture making, and related arts to over 400 students a year. This is not a "how-to" book in any sense. Korn wants to get at the why of craft, in particular, and at the satisfactions of creative work, in general to understand their essential nature. How does the making of objects both reflect and refine our own identities? What is it about craft and creative work that makes them so rewarding? What is the nature of those rewards? How do the products of creative work inform society?